Into the Light
by Keiran
Summary: Oneshot, 1x2. Based on the Equilibrium universe. A friendship, a system, a fight, an assumed death, and... the aftermath. Pretty optimistic though.


Author: Keiran  
Title: Into the Light 1/1  
Rating: 13.  
Warnings: none. Just general creepiness.  
Pairing: 1+2  
Genre: … general. I think.

Disclaimer: About as mine as Alpha Centauri. That is to say, not at all.

Notes: a short ficlet based on the _Equilibrium_ universe. Probably makes most sense if you're familiar with that movie, but I think it's understandable either way.

Thank you Shenlong Deb for betaing, and doing it so quickly.

xxXXXxx

Revolution is such an empty word. It always begins and ends with fear, hatred and pain. Endless, hopeless circle, which is nevertheless making the world go round.

He was the best warrior they had. The best soldier they could ever dream of having – the ultimate guardian of the peace, unfeeling, unemotional, always composed. He was the role model, the standard by which others were judged. Cleric Heero Yuy. The perfect soldier.

Such an irony that he felt for the first time the moment he failed.

The room was dark. He sat in the very middle, his hands bound behind his back with obvious skill. He couldn't work them loose. He would have hoped for freedom, but hope was a feeling alien to him. He had only ever known certainty. Yes and no. Black and white. Now though, when that certainty was his only remaining weapon, he could feel it draining from his veins, slowly but surely slipping between his fingers.

"I will not talk," he said tonelessly, addressing the dark figure in the corner of the room.

"I don't want you to talk," he heard a male voice reply. Cool, composed – but something in it made his blood run cold. This man felt. Somehow, that one thing was as obvious to Heero as was the sunlight during the day. There was that little note in his voice that he had never heard in a calm, certain voice.

This man felt. And that small detail was enough to shake the world under Heero's feet.

"What do you want from me then?" he asked, disinterested, looking at the man from the corner of his eye. All he got in reply was the cold cling of steel against steel. Ha. Death did not scare him. It never had. Death was a necessity.

He watched the man who had spoken step forward from the shadows. His eyes travelled up the slender black-clad form, stopping on a pale face, marked only by one long scar, starting right below the left eye, almost as if it were a track burned by tears.

It was a face he knew all too well.

"Ma- Maxwell!" he exclaimed breathlessly. Not even the drug could lessen the shock. The man smiled a little.

"It's been a while, hasn't it, Heero?" he responded kindly. The blue-eyed cleric composed himself forcibly. He was certain Maxwell was dead. He had been sure.

He had killed him with his own two hands.

"You must have been wondering how was it possible that you are here, now. That you have failed and for the first time too, I'll bet," Maxwell began, folding his arms behind his back. "I imagine you probably would have forgotten all about me."

"How could I. You were the only person who'd ever managed to defeat me," Yuy replied, looking into Maxwell's eyes calmly. It struck him as odd that these eyes – were violet. The man laughed.

"Yes, interesting, isn't it. I kicked your ass at the academy, you retaliated more than enough times. We were the perfect team they would always say. But then I slip and my best friend, instead of helping me up, follows, to deliver me to my end. Tries to, anyway," he added as an afterthought, playing with the small device in his hand. "Curiously enough, I lived."

"Is this your revenge then?" Heero asked, still looking into his one time friend's eyes calmly. Maxwell turned his back to him. With no small amount of surprise, Heero noted the long honey-brown rope of hair trailing down his back. The Maxwell he knew had always had short hair, as the regulations ordered.

No one had hair this long. It was impractical, a waste of effort, of time; it was a vanity, a whim.

It was beautiful.

It was as if Heero was suddenly startled awake. His breath hitched in his chest. Something was terribly wrong.

"Yes," Maxwell replied finally, without turning. "You could call it revenge." Finally he turned, the small device coming apart in his hands. Yuy saw it clearly for the first time. There, in Maxwell's hands, lay his own dart gun, signed with his very name and number. Even if it hadn't been he would have recognised it, despite the fact that every other person on the planet had an identical one. They were presented to them at birth, designed to administer the ultimate drug; one that would void human beings of emotion. The very gun he held to his own neck three times a day.

He stared, uncomprehending. He had no way of telling time, but his internal clock told him it was around the time he should dose. Maxwell must have sensed his question somehow, for he bent to face him dead on.

"It's nearing midnight," he said quietly. Yuy started. Two hours! He hadn't dosed for two hours. The consequences – missing a dose was punishable with annihilation. The government couldn't afford to have people start feeling! But then Maxwell was speaking again, this time his voice was stronger. "When the clock strikes midnight, it will be Monday, the 9th of May."

The blue-eyed cleric opened his mouth, once again speechless. Over twenty four hours with no dosing. Impossible. No one had ever lasted this long. No one had lived to tell the tale.

"This is," Maxwell continued, fishing the tiny containers filled with bluish liquid from the gun, "my revenge, you could say." He threw the empty gun aside, and reached for his collar. Deftly he let loose the clasps holding his outfit at the throat, and pulled, exposing his chest to the cold air, just as he let the vials fall from his palm and crack against the cement floor.

Heero heard the glass crack under Maxwell's boot.

"Look," he said, his voice brimming with emotion. "Look, Heero. My best friend. Look what you have done." And the cleric had looked. Starting right below the collarbone, as if continuing from the man's face, was a pale scar, its end hidden below the clothes even now. "Did that satisfy you? When you came back and told them you'd driven a knife through my chest, like the good soldier you are? Did they honour you? The one that had found a traitor among the clerics themselves?"

Against his will, Heero felt he was shaking. He felt moisture gather in the corners of his eyes, falling down his cheeks unchecked. "… Duo…" he whispered. "… Stop. Please, stop."

Everything was crashing around him. He could hear, couldn't see, couldn't think. He could only feel. And remember. Heero now recalled with painful clarity the emptiness that followed him for the thirty two years of his life, the years spent in the emotional void the drug created.

The visions of over ten years ago swam over him, visions of two young clerics, equally cold, equally emotionless, equally efficient in their ruthlessness. They were the best that had ever been offered to serve the Father.

And then, one day, they found themselves standing on the opposite sides of the barrier. Heero was sure he had finished it then, that he had killed his one-time friend. He didn't need much of a reason to do so. Duo Maxwell had felt emotion, and that was enough to sentence him to death. It was a shock for everyone, the high council included. There was no indication whatsoever – Maxwell had been a dutiful cleric; he killed without remorse, he destroyed everything that could potentially invoke emotion without a thought.

And suddenly, totally unexpectedly, he was found guilty of feeling.

Yuy had felt nothing when, having lost all the ammunition he had on him, he grabbed a sharp piece of metal and slashed almost blindly. He had felt nothing when he watched Maxwell's chest and face explode with redness, as the man fell into the darkness of the lower levels of the city.

Over three decades of not feeling crashed over him in that one moment, as he sat in the cold cellar, looking into the face of his old companion. His punishment, he thought. He bowed his head, expecting death and fearing it, for the first time in his life.

His eyes opened wide when he felt the warmth of an embrace instead of the coldness of steel.

"I'm sorry, Heero," he heard whispered in his ear. "But I know from experience that shock therapy works best." Pulling back slightly, Duo stood up and extended his hand. "Come with me." Finding, not really surprised, that he could move freely, Heero reached out and grabbed the offered hand.

"Welcome to the world," the violet-eyed man said with a wide grin, pulling the other up and opening the door wide. Step by step, he led his friend out into the blinding light.

**END.**


End file.
